


Flame in the Dark

by missbeizy



Category: Glee
Genre: AU, Dystopia, M/M, Magic, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2114487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt is a magical being in a world where magic is harvested forcibly as an energy resource, and Blaine is a magic hunter assigned to bring him in for processing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flame in the Dark

The night that Kurt Hummel turns eighteen is also the night that he is almost captured.

He's been on the run for the better part of the last year, hiding in plain sight in crowded magical refugee camps, trading his skills for the dampening amulets that have concealed him from the authorities. But it's his birthday, and for once he just wants to stop. It's bad enough that he's been alone this long—isn't he entitled to rest, at the very least, on this day of all days?

At ten past ten, he's holed up in an abandoned shed on the outskirts of the camp, eating his meager dinner and thinking of better times. At twelve past ten, the exact moment of his birth, he feels a wave of power surge through his body, so intense and hot that he glows with it, scaring himself—and the amulet around his neck shatters

He'd had a feeling that eighteen would be special, would come with an impressive increase in his power level, but this is ten times what puberty had done, and he's alone, and he's scared.

And the amulet is broken.

A journey back into the camp to purchase another would be impossible—the Finders and their spies are everywhere. Uncloaked, he would be sensed by one of these magic-sensitive folk within minutes. Out here, on the edges of the camp, he's defenseless, but distance is his ally, and if he can wait it out and send a message to the camp tomorrow, he could have a dealer bring him a new amulet.

He sits there, clutching his rough brown robe around himself, magical orange light glowing through his skin like candlelight through fingertips, turning him into a beacon in the dark, practically screaming, "I'm here! Come and get me!".

Unfortunately, someone out there is listening.

Kurt feels the invisible shield zing to life around the shed before he can even stand. It makes his ears pop, like being thrust to a higher altitude. He's on his feet at once, silently screaming and searching the corners and edges of the shed for some miraculous, overlooked gap.

Of course, there isn't one. The Finders—once they have found—are very thorough.

The door of the shed opens—the barrier allows the Finder that had created it to step through—and then closes behind him.

Kurt freezes, his hands in front of him in a useless defensive gesture. He's still glowing like a lamp, and now he's breathing heavily and sweating, as well—he must have been like a beacon, leading this Finder to him as blatantly as the stars had guided sailors of old.

The Finder is a man of average height and size, wearing purple robes which are accented with golden trim. He pushes the hood back from his head, revealing a beautiful face and carefully slicked back dark hair.

_Well_ , Kurt thinks, _at least he's pretty._

"Not really the best day to be in town, is it?" the Finder asks, sounding almost sympathetic.

Kurt tries to use his powers, but isn't really surprised when the Finder raises a hand and blocks the attempt easily; the air sort of ripples around him, but nothing more.

"Oh, please, don't," he says. "You can't influence my thoughts, not even after that power surge. It'll only exhaust you to try."

Kurt doesn't know what is scarier—how easily these Finders can sense and seek out magic but remain unaffected by it, or the fact that he has finally been caught after so many years of successfully using the tools that his father had given him to remain hidden. Being able to manipulate people's thoughts—and therefore their behavior and actions—is a terrible skill, but Kurt has always managed to use it for good, even when he had also been using it for profit.

The Finders, and the government who sponsors them, doesn't care about that, though. They only want his power—raw and sucked out of him—for fuel. One strong magical being's life force can run a city for years, and without that theft the world would fall even farther into ruin than it already has.

"I won't let you take me alive," he says, scraping his glowing hands over the rough wooden wall behind him. He can feel his new power just beneath his skin as he can feel the blood in his veins, boiling and fresh and strong.

"Why die uselessly here and now? Wouldn't it be better to at least be of some use before the end?" the Finder asks, sounding genuinely curious.

It would be easier to capitulate, Kurt supposes, if being drained of one's magic simply meant death—but to lose one's magic to the government's machine is to lose one's soul, leaving one a walking shell of dim memories, a body that continues living long after the mind and its emotions are gone. It's a walking death; magical people aren't afforded the mercy of release.

"You don't want to do this," Kurt says. "I can sense it in your mind."

The Finder hesitates at that, and this gives Kurt the time that he needs to lash out. He isn't quite sure what he's doing—he can't actually do anything to the Finder himself—but he's a pillar of magical strength right now, and he pushes that strength outward, washing the shed in a flash of yellow light so bright that it makes them both close their eyes against it.

When he opens his eyes, he sees that he's created a shell within the shell of the barrier that the Finder had put up around the shed. Now, neither of them can leave. It isn't much, but it will buy him time to think.

The Finder looks at the glimmering walls of the shed. In this brighter light, Kurt can see that he is even prettier than he had first looked upon first glance—he has beautiful hazel eyes, a plump red mouth, and a smooth, olive-toned complexion.

The Finder sighs, clasping his hands in front of him. "You can't hold that forever. I don't need power to maintain mine. Why drain your magic for no good reason?"

"Of course that's all you care about," Kurt says, his lip curling in disgust. "I'll take my chances."

He crouches in the corner of the shed, wrapping his arms around his knees. After a moment, the Finder joins him, kneeling on the dirty floor and bowing his head.

"Very well," he says. "Then we shall wait."

After several long moments of silence, Kurt asks, "How did you know that I was here?"

"One of your clients ratted you out," the Finder replies.

Kurt seethes.

_Of course. What a birthday gift._

"But I didn't need the tip," he continues, speaking to his folded hands. "I could feel you."

Kurt raises an eyebrow. "What's taken you so long, then?"

"I've only been in physical range of you for a few days.”

"You can't have been after me long, then."

"The Finder who was assigned to you before me died." He blinks, and looks up at Kurt. "Why am I even telling you this?"

"I may not be able to use my powers on you," Kurt says, staring into his eyes, "but you're sensitive to me. You've been tuned into my magic for weeks, all of your power bent toward finding me, and you haven't quite turned it off yet."

The Finder breathes out slowly, and allows their eyes to meet. His pupils are blown, and Kurt can see his pulse hammering against his throat. "Very perceptive."

Kurt tilts his head. "You're a Consumer, aren't you?"

Not all Finders are Consumers—Finders who are not only immune to magic but able to take it in as a form of their own personal energy, and are therefore much more skilled in finding magic people, like a predator hardwired by nature with abilities to find its prey—but Consumers are the strongest of the lot, and are usually sent after the more desirable sources of magical energy.

The Finder's eyes burn into Kurt's. "Yes. You shouldn't have locked us in here together, Kurt."

"Go ahead," he says, daring this man with every fiber of his being. "Drain me. Glut yourself on me. I'd rather die in this shed than strapped to a mainframe for the rest of my life."

Kurt can both feel and see his own power swirling around him like golden glitter and dust and mist, churning and burning as bright as a sunrise. If he can tempt this Finder into draining him, completely enough to kill him instead of just leaving him an empty shell as the energy machinery does, he can escape a fate that's worse than death.

There's no way that he's making it out of this shed as a free man. At least he can go as a peaceful corpse instead of an unwilling prisoner.

"I've been able to smell you for days," the Finder says, staring at him. "Hear you, like music on the air. Feel you, like sunlight on my skin." His eyelids flutter. "It's been—torture, you always one step ahead of me."

"Are you expecting pity?" Kurt asks, quivering with rage and fear.

"Don't you understand?" the Finder asks, lifting a hand. He curls his fingers in the air between then, as if plucking the strings of an invisible musical instrument. The quivering yellow magic around Kurt hums and flickers, and he gasps—it's as if the Finder is playing the magic around him, making it shift and condense, making it caress his skin. "It's a connection that I've never felt before. It's—different."

Kurt slumps forward onto his knees, overwhelmed. It's like fingers on his lonely flesh, everywhere all at once, beneath his clothes and against his scalp and around his neck. He can feel the scrape of it over the nape of his neck, just above the top knob of his spine. That little spot is one of the easiest places to magically penetrate and draw energy from, and even though he knows what the Finder is about to do, he can't stop it. He had used up whatever generic magic burst that he'd had in him with the shielding.

"Please," he gasps, sliding onto all fours under the intensity of the sensation, his head bent, his chest heaving, as the Finder's power nips at the back of his neck. "Please, don't—don't—"

"My name is Blaine," the Finder says, slowly, as if in a trance. "You should know that."

"Please," Kurt repeats.

The Finder's—Blaine's—power is like the dig of a single sharp tooth against Kurt's skin. It isn't a literal, physical breech, but it feels much the same as it presses in, stinging and inescapable. It's briefly painful and then—there's a sort of pop, and a high-pitched hiss, like air escaping a small hole, and then the golden glow around Kurt's body flares outward and turns green.

"Oh," Kurt moans, as the green haze around him explodes into a dozen different shades of the color, layering with sound that's like a chorus of harmonized voices singing, with warmth that's like turning to greet the morning sun, with a sense of peace that's like coming home. He can feel his magic flowing out of him—not forcibly, not painfully, but like pressure being relieved, changing too much into just enough. He writhes on his hands and knees.

The Finder crawls to his side, cradles his face and tilts it forward.

"Please, please, don't hurt—don't—" he begs, as Blaine opens his mouth over the energy point at the back of his neck and _pulls_. The green aura around them pulses and shivers. Kurt's eyes snap wide open, and his head falls back.

Blaine is gorging on his energy, guzzling it down in gulps, and shaking as violently as he is, but it doesn't feel wrong. They're together inside of the aura, not as opposites or enemies but instead two halves of the same whole. It feels as if they are simply made to be like this, with Kurt giving and Blaine taking. It feels safe—so very safe. Kurt has never felt such a thing, not even as a child with his father by his side.

Fear becomes wonder, and Kurt rises on his knees as Blaine holds his neck and jaw from behind, taking and taking and taking, until the green light around them fades into a somber golden yellow, and Blaine tears his mouth from Kurt's neck with a gasp. Kurt can feel the press of his thumb, smoothing over the spot and sealing the energy leak.

The yellow light from Kurt's energy surge has faded, leaving the shed in darkness.

Kurt is just Kurt again, as he was before he turned eighteen.

"Why—why should I know your name?" he asks, trembling, and gasping for air. His body feels as if it's been dipped in live magic.

"Because I've been looking for you forever," Blaine whispers against the nape of his neck, "but not for them."

"I don't feel any weaker," he says, not processing the meaning behind Blaine's words.

"I took what you had to spare," Blaine says, helping him sit up. "Nothing more. It would have bled out in a few days, anyway.”

"I don't understand."

Blaine cups his cheek, and tips his head up. What Kurt sees in those bright eyes frightens him more than anything else that he's experienced tonight.

"I had to taste you to know for sure," Blaine says, thumbing his mouth. "We're connected. I don't know how, but there's a reason why I was able to find you when no one else could. You were my first assignment. And I think—I think that you are the reason why I was driven to join the Finders in the first place. I don't have any taste for collection work otherwise. I never have. It was just you. Somehow I knew that it was you out there, and that I had to find you."

As the moments go by, Kurt becomes more sure of himself. He finds himself sitting back against Blaine's body. Blaine's robes are finely made—they're warm, and the shed is cold.

He can feel the wonder in Blaine's mind as easily as he can feel the heat coming off of Blaine's skin, and it sets him at ease. This man has no intention of handing him over to the government. He is as frightened as Kurt is, and just as in awe of the connection between them.

Kurt searches his face. "What are you?"

Blaine slides his fingers into Kurt's hair. "Yours," he says, pressing their foreheads together. "I think that I'm yours."


End file.
